Sharing your faith with loved ones isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do sometimes, but it’s something we all are called to do. Recently, I mentioned that the small groups in our church have been going through a witnessing workshop intended to give us practical guidance and a biblical foundation for personal evangelism.

While I know there’s some folks reading this who might find the idea of a “witnessing workshop” silly, we should recognize that we need the help. According to LIfeWay Research, while the majority of us agree that sharing our faith is important, few of us do so on a regular basis (if at all).

This despite the majority of people surveyed saying they felt comfortable sharing their faith effectively.

So what’s the deal? What’s with the disconnect here?

I think it’s because we’ve forgotten something really important:

If you want to grow in your faith, you’ve got to share it.

That’s something we’ve been reminded of as we continue down the road to completing our witnessing workshop and encouraging our small group members to engage with the course’s assignments. And I’ll be honest, we were kind of terrified of doing a lot of it.

But doing it has been a real opportunity to see how God’s been at work through the program so far, both in our role as facilitators and as participants. Here are a couple of quick examples:

One of our first assignments was to ask three people we know what they believe about the afterlife.

Not counter it, not correct it—just ask and listen.

We received some impressive feedback from almost everyone we asked (only one had an answer that amounted to “I dunno”). One of our family members actually provided a two page email in response to the question—giving not only his opinion of the afterlife, but outlining his entire worldview!

And although there was so much that he said that would make you want to cry if I shared it, there was much that we could affirm as true—truths that we would be able to redirect to Jesus.

Another way we’ve seen God at work through it is in our small group members, who, after an initial rough patch with getting started, have started to realize that engaging people in spiritual conversations isn’t terribly difficult. Most people are quite happy to tell you what they believe about practically anything—and by listening, we gain an opportunity to be heard as well.

But none of this would happen if we weren’t all striving to be intentional about sharing our faith.

Our church leaders want to see relational evangelism normalized in the lifestyle of the congregation. All of us still have a long way to go, but those who are embracing the opportunities God provides are seeing their own faith grow.

What are some of the obstacles preventing you from sharing your faith?